Uncle Finn
by SometimesThis
Summary: 3 years post-AYITL. 'It happened in the strangest, most random way, but then Finn learnt a long time ago that some of the best days (or nights) tended to start out like that... Lowering his sun glasses to the end of his nose, he peered over the top to get a better view of the beautiful child. She was, in a word, photogenic.' [Disclaimer: I do not own the characters.]
1. Chapter 1

Part 1 of 3

It happened in the strangest, most random way, but then Finn learnt a long time ago that some of the best days (or nights) tended to start out like that.

He had no particular reason to be in the park, it just sort of happened. He stumbled out of a nearby apartment block, met by the sun too high in the sky, dark glasses keeping the harsh light of day out of his eyes, clothes seemingly as impeccable as ever, despite all the fun he had last night. Normally, he would call for his car the moment his foot hit the pavement, but today was different. He crossed the street and took himself into the park, dropping down onto a bench and breathing the air a while. He had nowhere to be today, nothing specific to do, nobody to see. Finn found himself in one of those rare and strange reflective moments. For an hour, he was sat there, not watching out for women or even trying to get his bearings, just sitting, being, thinking.

His silent reverie was interrupted by a small presence to his right that made no sound but was suddenly very much there, a tiny hand on his knee.

"Well, hello there, darling," he said, looking down at the little girl in the yellow sun-dress. "Aren't you just adorably sunny?"

She looked momentarily bashful at the attention and then she smiled wide and bright. Finn was startled by the way the little face lit up, the way the blue eyes sparkled. Lowering his sun glasses to the end of his nose, he peered over the top to get a better view of the beautiful child. She was, in a word, photogenic.

"Maia!"

He didn't need to look at the mother who came rushing over, admonishing her daughter for running off that way. Finn already knew just exactly who was there, because her daughter was the spitting image of her, because the voice was as familiar and welcome to him as the sweetest music.

"Rory Gilmore," he said, seeing her only when she literally stepped into his field of vison, swinging her daughter up into her arms. "Been a while, love."

"Finn? Oh my God, what are you doing here?"

He rose to hug her, mindful of crushing the little one. The funny part was when Maia seemed to realise she might be missing out and reached out her arms to hug both of them too. She had to be all of two years old, and it wasn't just Rory that Finn saw when he looked at her a second time.

"I could ask you the same thing, darling," he replied to the question, tearing his eyes from the little girl and looking to Rory once again. "Shouldn't you be living the quiet life in that adorable little town of yours? I'm guessing husband, child, little white house with roses around the door?"

His tone was necessarily sarcastic because he was fairly certain he was wrong. Maia wasn't the result of some relationship that Rory had gotten into recently. If she were, Rory wouldn't be looking so awkward right about now.

"I, er... It's not exactly like that."

"Well, maths was never my strong suit, love, but I can hazard a guess when this little beauty made her debut," he said pointedly, looking at Maia.

She grinned at the compliment, not understanding much of what he said, Finn was sure, but any female responded to the word 'beauty', he knew. She certainly was her mother's daughter, almost a perfect copy of Rory, but with just one or two tell-tale signs of her Huntzberger blood.

"Mama?" said Maia, looking at Rory with those wide innocent eyes.

They were so much like her own, like her mother's, and yet certain times she was every inch her father's daughter. That always hurt. Rory figured it always would.

"Sweetie, this is... Uncle Finn," she said then, grinning wide at the expression it caused on his face.

It probably wasn't a title he ever thought to have, unless he was using it himself in some misguided attempt to chat up a distressed woman. Rory was sure she had heard 'Come tell Uncle Finn all about it' at some party or bar in the dim and distant past. It felt like a million years ago that they were so young, so carefree. She had even told him her own troubles once or twice, when she was a little drunk, when Logan was being a particularly special brand of ass and even his friends were on her side.

"Unca Finn," said Maia, breaking into Rory's thoughts. "Hi," she added, waving her arm.

"Hello, sweetheart," Finn replied smoothly, recovering from too many surprises about as easily as Rory might've expected. "Well, how about I take you two ladies to some fine local establishment for refreshments? Seems we've got a bit of catching up to do."

"Um, no" Rory shook her head, deliberately looking away from Finn's pointed look. "I mean, I'm sorry, but we can't, not right now. I have a meeting with my publisher in an hour, and I have to get Maia to the babysitter before then."

"Publisher?"

"I wrote a book. It's kind of a long story."

"As most books are."

He was smiling when he said it, in that disarming way that had brought many a woman to surrender against their own better judgement. Though preying on the drunk and broken had been a tactic in the old days, Rory knew Finn didn't need to use it. He was plenty capable of enticing women into doing anything at all. He had that way about him, she would have to be blind not to notice it from the start. A bit of a rogue, that was one way of describing him, and a terrible flirt was another. Yet underneath it all, she knew he was a good man. He had reasons enough for the way he behaved, she remembered.

Maia's childish jabbering got Rory's head back in the game for a second time. She didn't usually have this much trouble concentrating, not lately. There was always so much going on, so much to do, there wasn't much time for wondering, for thinking about the past. It was safer that way, the last two or three years. Now she couldn't help the urge to reconnect with a piece of her former life that she had never expected to be granted access to again.

"Um, could you...?" she asked, moving to hand Maia over.

Finn looked less startled than Rory might've expected, taking the little girl into his arms and bouncing her on his hip. He was a natural, which was sort of shocking really. On the other hand, Rory wasn't sure why she should be surprised that Finn could charm a two-year-old just as easily as a woman of twenty or thirty. Hell, she was pretty sure he would have her grandma eating out of his hand in five minutes flat given half the chance. That was just Finn.

"You are going to be some heart-breaker when you grow up, my love," he was telling Maia when Rory got done scribbling her number and address on a piece of scrap paper. "Just like Mum," he said pointedly, the moment she glanced up and met his eyes.

"You really haven't changed, have you, Finn?" she countered, swapping the paper in the hand for the child in his arms.

Maia frowned from her mother's embrace, reaching out her arm.

"Unca Finn," she said, trying to get back to him.

"We'll meet again, baby girl," he promised her, grabbing her little hand and kissing it. "I guarantee," he added, eyes shifting to Rory then.

"It'd be good to catch up," she confirmed, nodding her head. "I'll see you soon, Finn."

They shared a smile before parting ways, then he finally looked at the paper in his hands. He wasn't absolutely sure where the apartment block was, save for the fact it was a long way from his own place. Clearly, the book wasn't a best-seller yet, but she must be doing okay to be living in the city, raising a little one by herself and all.

It would be three days before Finn saw Rory again, but not so long before he learnt at least some of her story.

"This is not an easy thing to find," he said from the door way of her apartment, proffering a book she recognised in his right hand and removing his sunglasses with his left. "Also, how on earth you managed to write the college years without including yours truly, I have no idea. It falls a little flat if I'm honest."

He was at least half-joking, Rory was sure, which was why she took no offence. For as long as she knew him, it was always clear that Finn was never really trying to offend anybody, it just happened sometimes, like a side-effect that couldn't be helped. It was strange how she had missed that, how she had missed him, though perhaps she hadn't realised it until she saw him again just recently.

Inviting him inside, she checked on Maia, sat in front of the TV and lost in some cartoon that would be of no interest to anyone over the age of four. Rory offered coffee then and took Finn with her to the tiny kitchen, from which she could still see her daughter in the living room.

"So, you read the whole thing?" she said of 'Gilmore Girls', not even looking at Finn when he answered.

"More or less. You know me, love, not much of a great reader, but I got the gist. 'Course, the blanks I need filled come a bit later than where this ends," he said, dropping the hardback onto the counter with a thud.

Rory turned to look at him then, arms folded defensively across her chest. She almost expected him to be mad at her. Perhaps she ought to have known better. Finn really didn't get mad. He got drunk, he got crazy, mostly happy, sometimes melancholy, but never angry that she could remember. It wouldn't have suited him, she was sure.

"Pretty sure you told me the other day that even you could do the math on this one," she said, glancing through to where Maia sat giggling on the couch.

"Nothing wrong with my maths, love, or my biology," he said with a look. "What's got me confused is how I didn't know. Unless... Well, me and dear Logan don't see quite so much of each other since he got fitted with the ball and chain, but I'd like to think he'd let me know I was 'Uncle Finn' before now."

Rory looked away awkwardly, tried to cover herself by moving back to the coffee machine and busying herself with filling two mugs. She could feel Finn watching her and knew he was trying to figure out the situation without her explaining it.

"Look, far as I can tell, we've got two options, love," he told her back, since it was all he had right now. "Either he's got no idea a little Huntzberger girl is running around on the planet, or he does, but the two of you made some deal to keep her quiet."

The coffee pot made a clang going back into the machine, but Rory didn't say a word. She turned around to hand Finn a mug, tears evident in her too blue eyes. He wasn't sure which option of the two was true, if either of them, but it killed him to see her hurting like that.

"Logan knows," she said, visibly swallowing hard. "We both made our choice. This is how it is," she said, shrugging her shoulders and looking out towards Maia one more time.

Finn closed his eyes a moment, let a mess of emotions he wasn't expecting wash over him. There was an urge to hug Rory, which he felt it best to over-ride for the moment, and the need to take a swing at a man he had called a friend too long, it seemed. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. His own childhood and upbringing had been less than stellar thanks to parents that couldn't get their act together, and though it could have been as much Rory's decision as Logan's to let Maia live without a father, Finn felt more mad at his old Life & Death Brigade brother. Blame his own Daddy issues, or his soft-spot for Rory, or a hundred other things. Didn't change the fact it was true.

"So, what's been going on with you, Finn?" asked Rory then, pulling him back to the present with that sunny smile he knew so well, the one that hid her pain almost too well. "Come on, it's been years. You've probably got so many stories to share."

He smiled because she was smiling, because it was easier. Because it was what she wanted, and somehow that was all Finn had ever been capable of giving her - just exactly what she wanted. Why change the habit of a lifetime?


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2 of 3

"Knock, knock?"

The door had been left unlocked so Finn guessed he was supposed to just let himself in. That was how it worked in these quaint little towns, or so he had heard. Stars Hollow was about a million miles away from the kinds of places he had always lived. He had only been there once before, more than three years ago now. It was dark then, and he was more than a little drunk before the adventure ever began. Even then, he hadn't been here, to this particular house. He never met Rory's family. Well, the mother with the incredible genes, once, but that wasn't so official. Not like today.

"Unca Finn!"

Maia's joyful voice was quickly followed by the whole of her running full pelt into the hallway. Finn grabbed her when she got close and swung her in the air.

"There's my little darling!" he declared as she giggled happily. "Photogenic as ever, of course," he said, settling her in his arms and kissing her cheek. "What is this? Vera Wang? Stella McCartney?" he asked, smoothing her pretty dress.

"Huh?" she said, looking confused. "Silly Unca Finn!" she declared then, hugging his neck with her little arms.

"She knows you so well already," said Rory, appearing from the kitchen.

"What can I say? Always do make an impression on the ladies," he said with a wink.

Rory smiled, looking more genuine in the expression than a few months ago when they first stumbled upon each other again. It was surprise enough to see her that day. Certainly, Finn had never considered the amount of time they would be spending together from then to now. Never thought for a second that he'd be here in Stars Hollow for Thanksgiving with the Gilmores.

"Honey, did you...? Oh, hi."

"Mom, do you remember Finn?" Rory asked her.

"Mrs Danes," he said, nodding politely. "Thank you so much for inviting me. You have a delightful home."

"You can tell that from the hallway?" asked Lorelai, smirking a little. "He's good," she told Rory then.

"Always," she replied, without missing a beat.

"Okay. Well, Finn, it's very nice to have you here," Lorelai told him. "If you wanna head for the living room, I'll introduce you around. Rory, honey, Lane's been blowing up your cell. I'm guessing it's her traditional Thanksgiving Day meltdown that she needs talking through?"

"Right on time," said Rory, checking her watch. "I'll be back," she promised both her mother and Finn as she disappeared into the bedroom.

Lorelai had trouble keeping her eyes off Finn. It wasn't just that he was a fine looking young man, which he totally was. It was more how Maia seemed to love him already. From what she heard, the guy had spent a reasonable amount of time with the girls in the city, but Lorelai hadn't really considered how close he had gotten with them, not even when Rory asked if it would be okay to invite him for Thanksgiving dinner.

"Er, Happy Thanksgiving," he said then, as if he read her mind or something.

"And to you," Lorelai replied. "Although I guess it's a little different for you, being from the Land Down Under?"

She attempted an Australian accent that made him wince, though honestly, she looked more disturbed by the sound than he ever could.

"Yeah, I promise never to do that again," she said, shaking her head. "Right this way."

She took Finn through to the living room, where Maia finally made it clear she wanted to get down. She ran circles around all of the furniture before throwing herself onto the couch between two people Finn had never met in his life.

"Hey, munchkin," said the male, ruffling her hair. "You get bored of bugging grandpa already?"

"Unca Finn here!" she said happily, tipping her head all the way back so she could see him again. "See, Unca Jess!"

"Hey, it's like I'm not even needed here," said Lorelai, rolling her eyes. "Finn, Jess. Jess, Finn," she said pointlessly now. "Also, this is April, Luke's daughter. Luke is in the kitchen, cooking a mountain of food for later. It's what he does best. Well, one of the things."

Jess made a face at that, whilst April fell into an 'eeew' that belonged in a much younger girl's mouth. Finn didn't comment. It seemed safer somehow.

"Anyway, you guys should get acquainted. I'm sous-chef for the day, so, yeah."

She practically ran from the room and Finn couldn't blame her. He could feel the awkward building from the second he stepped in here, and one of the major issues was Jess. The face wasn't familiar, but the name he had heard enough from Rory in the past few months. His company published the first couple of runs of Rory's book, before the major players came calling and offered to make her a real best seller. He was also the ex, before Logan, and the nephew of Luke.

"You wanna sit down?" asked April, gesturing to the armchair.

Finn glanced from Jess to her and found her grinning at him, fluttering her eyelashes, the whole works. No question she was a pretty girl, and Finn wasn't dumb enough to dislike the attention. Still, there was no way even he was low enough to make a play for Rory's step-sister. Once upon a time, he might've been that guy. The last few weeks and months, things had definitely changed.

Conversation didn't come easy, not in this crowd, not until Rory returned to the room and filled in the blanks between her nearest and dearest. Between her and Lorelai, they pretty much made everybody get along, and then as the day went on, it got to the point where it all felt more genuine, like everybody actually had found a way to communicate, to be a weird kind of friends.

Finn almost forgot he was the missing link in the family scene. Not that it wasn't a feeling he was used to after all these years, but these people were different. Kind, inclusive, oddly non-judgemental. Maybe there was something to be said for small town living and salt of the earth folks like these. After all, without them, Rory wouldn't be Rory, Finn realised.

After dinner, she volunteered to clean up and Jess said he would help. Though Luke insisted they didn't have to, Lorelai agreed to the plan on his behalf, telling her husband he should go sit down with her in the living room and relax a while.

Finn smiled at that, he couldn't help it. A couple their age that loved each other like that still, that held hands sometimes, stole glances across the table at each other during dinner. It made his heart ache in the best way, because it was a dream he never had for himself. Easier to enjoy the company of a string of women he would never see again, be the life and soul of the party, never stop long enough to realise what he was missing. The older he got, the tougher that became to withstand. The more time he spent with Rory and Maia, the less he wanted to be the party animal he always thought he would be. The more he wanted to be something else, something more worthwhile.

"Come play!" said Maia then, pulling on his arm.

Finn snapped out of his silent reverie to realise that the little one wanted him to play some childish board game or other with her and April. Seemed like a decent enough way to spend the afternoon, he thought, contemplating his half-drunk glass of wine on the table. This had to be the most sober he had been at a party in a very long time. Felt strangely good.

"Come on then, Little Miss," he said to Maia, allowing himself to be dragged wherever she wanted him to go.

Jess saw it happen on his way back to the kitchen with the last of the dishes. Dumping them onto the table with the rest, he watched Rory a minute while he rolled up his shirt sleeves in preparation for washing dishes. She was wrapping up the leftovers worth saving, putting those that weren't into the trash. Through all of this there was a giddy smile on her face the like of which Jess hadn't seen in years, but he recognised it all too well.

"He's not what I expected," he said without preamble. "I guess I thought he'd be too much like the blond dick from Yale."

"You're still calling him that?" asked Rory with a look.

Jess rolled his eyes and turned towards the sink to start on the dishes.

"Yale might have been a long time ago," he said eventually, "but some things don't change."

"Sometimes they do," said Rory thoughtfully, smiling all the more as she heard the joyful laughter and chatter from the next room. "Sometimes people do... and sometimes they don't."

"Very philosophical," Jess dead-panned, watching Rory wander over with the dishtowel in her hands. "So, this is the guy, right?"

"What guy?"

"C'mon, Ror," he said, handing her the first plate to dry. "Finn, he's the guy. For you."

She snorted out a laugh that was supposed to be incredulous. It didn't quite come off, and they both knew it. Still, she said nothing, just dried off one plate then a second and a third as Jess passed them over to her. Eventually, somebody had to say something.

"Look, I'm not saying you can't do it alone, just like Lorelai, but why would you want to? Why, when you have a second choice that you like better?"

Rory opened her mouth to answer that but then closed it again fast. She wasn't stupid. She knew exactly what Jess meant, it was just easier not to admit it right now.

Finn so wasn't the guy for her, he couldn't be. When she recalled the antics he got up to at Yale, and after. He was such a flirt and a womaniser and a drunk, so much of the time. He had issues, but then, Rory guessed she wasn't lacking in those herself. Besides, she couldn't judge Finn on the way he had been back then. As he was now, all the best parts of the guy she used to know, plus this other element, this whole grown-up vibe that she could respect. He loved Maia, or he seemed to anyway, and she certainly adored her Unca Finn. That had happened so easily, as had Rory's renewed friendship with an old 'mate', as Finn would say. They were closer now than they had ever been, and Rory didn't hate that, not at all.

"If I was going to fall backwards..." she said then, meeting Jess' eyes, her look very meaningful, very clear.

"That's once upon a time stuff, Ror," he told her with a wry smile.

She nodded because she knew it was true. They made their misguided attempt at rekindling a while ago now. It wasn't that they didn't love each other, that he couldn't love her daughter. It wasn't even that they wouldn't be happy in their own way, but it wasn't what either of them wanted anymore, not what they needed. They were better as best friends, maybe even family, in a weird way. Romantically, they were the past. Somebody else had to be the future.

"I don't know," said Rory eventually, contemplating the latest dish she was drying like it might hold all the answers to life, the universe, and everything in its patterned surface. "Or maybe I do know, and that's the scary part."

"Maybe," Jess agreed. "For what it's worth, I already told you he's not a dick," he said, smirking wickedly when she looked his way. "As vain, rich, Beemer-owning guys go, I've met worse."

"Me too," she said, smiling widely and leaning in to kiss his cheek. "Thanks, Jess."

"Anytime."


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3 of 3

It wasn't entirely a conscious decision. In fact, it started out as a joke. At the time, Rory was grateful for Lorelai finding humour in the situation, finally acting like her daughter dating Finn wasn't crazy or stupid.

Rory understood why her mom was so apprehensive in the beginning. Logan's old friend maybe wasn't a great title for the man that Rory ended up with. Certainly, she never saw it coming, but it had happened so easily somehow.

Finn just wanted to be there for her and for Maia. He chose them over parties, over other women, over work sometimes. If they needed him, he came running, and Rory wasn't sorry about that. He became the first person she called, whether the news was good or bad. They were friends and then more. At this point, not even a year since they stumbled upon each other at the park, Rory couldn't imagine life without him.

"Are you crazy?" she had asked Lorelai, as they sat together watching _Leap Year_ for maybe the millionth time in their lives.

"You know it, babe," her mother dead-panned, "but how is that relevant? C'mon, it's not like it's a big deal anymore. I proposed to Luke. Well, the first time anyway," she considered, eyes never really leaving the TV - not so surprising because, hey, Matthew Goode with his shirt off!

Rory had laughed, shook her head, let the moment pass. At least, it would have seemed to anyone else like she let it. In truth, the thought was stuck in her head and she had no way to remove it. Maybe it wasn't such a crazy idea. They were practically living together already, and neither of them were getting any younger...

Maia really wasn't an issue. She adored Unca Finn, preferring him over Rory sometimes. He was so good with her, something she had told him several times.

"Same mental age," he explained, more than once now, with that familiar grin that never failed to make her laugh.

At first, she thought he was making jokes to cover his embarrassment at being good with kids. Eventually, he explained that he spent a lot of time with children, having a large amount of much younger cousins around. Rory didn't want to be disappointed that it wasn't merely her child that inspired fatherly aspects in him, but she was, just a little.

"Of course, you are much more fun that any of them, my darling!" he had told Maia the very next moment, putting Rory's mind at rest in a second.

He always knew what to say. Rory used to think that about Logan, but he proved her wrong time and again on that score, as well as a whole bunch of others. She knew things were going to be awkward when she found out she was pregnant, but she had expected Logan to want some contact, at least as much as her own father had with her. Not a chance.

"I loved Logan like a brother, love, but we both know he was never going to step up," Finn told her, during one of their rare discussions on the subject.

"You would've," Rory said certainly.

Finn had shrugged and not replied. He couldn't guarantee that he would have behaved any better than Logan, and that ought to scare her, but it didn't. Whatever might have been was immaterial now. Finn wasn't Maia's father, but he seemed to want to be, or at the very least, to be there as much as he could for her and Rory. He would be Maia's Luke, Rory considered, and she would be very much okay with that, if only he could want to be with her too. So far, it seemed that way, and yet.

"Rory, love? You alright?"

He was staring at her with a frown on his face when she came back to the present and paid attention. Rory realised how long she must have been zoned out and how not happy she must look for him to seem so worried.

Shaking her head, she forced a smile.

"I'm fine," she promised. "I am, I just... I was thinking."

"So hard that I thought I'd bored you to death. Then I thought, come on, this is me, of course not."

Rory laughed, took a sip from her wine glass and placed it carefully back on the table. She was being ridiculous. Of course, Finn loved her, he had said as much. He wanted to be with her and Maia. Hell, she had offered him the chance to do absolutely anything he wanted for his birthday, an event that only officially came around once every four years, and here he was. She said she could get a sitter so they could be alone, but he had insisted that if he got the choice, he would love to spend the day with both her and Maia, and then they could have the evening alone once the little one went to bed anyway.

"Did you ever see this happening?" she asked suddenly. "You and me, did you ever think...?"

"That I should be so lucky as to have this chance?" he asked her. "Never!"

"I'm not kidding, Finn."

"Neither am I," he said definitely, larger-than-life looks and tone disappearing in an instant as his hand covered hers on the table. "Look, Rory, I admit, when I was young and foolish, I fancied you. Logan swooped in and you were his for the taking. I was okay with that. Plenty more fish in the sea, and hey, I got your attention whenever I wanted it, no big deal," he said with a shrug. "Except, sometimes, it was. A big deal, I mean."

"It was?"

Finn smirked and leaned across the table as if about to impart some big secret, a pointless gesture since they were completely alone in the apartment. Rory couldn't help but find it cute anyway.

"Darling, you have no idea how many times I feigned drunk just to have you wrangle me into a car."

" _Feigned_ drunk?" she echoed. "Why do I not believe that?"

"Rory, I was a practiced drinker at thirteen. Do you really think in my college days I needed that much help after a few beers and shots?"

He was serious, which was kind of a new look for Finn, but Rory recognised the signs by now. He meant this, he really had just been trying to get more of her attention, and she had given it to him, over and over. It was kind of crazy to think she never figured it out, but back in the Yale days and even after that, she had always been looking at Logan, blinded by whatever it was about him she used to love. She had trouble recalling now.

"I'm sorry," she felt compelled to say. "I... I didn't know."

"You weren't supposed to, love. Very different now, of course," he said picking her hand up off the table and kissing it. "Now there's no competition, and if there was, well, I'd be forced to duel them to the death!"

He was joking again, on the surface anyway. Underneath, Rory couldn't help but wonder if his words held a grain of truth. Finn got this look in his eyes sometimes, serious to a degree that almost felt dangerous, but she loved it anyway. She had seen in just a handful of times before they stumbled upon each other last year. One time in particular that she recalled with genuine clarity was at a bed and breakfast in New Hampshire, on the final outing she shared with the Life and Death Brigade. The day she said goodbye to them all. Rory had never expected to see any of them ever again. She was so glad to be proven wrong, and in the most unexpected way. There was no way she was willing to say goodbye again.

"Finn?" she said, not waiting for him to speak, barely giving him enough time to look up and meet her eyes. "Wanna marry me?"

The silence that followed almost went on too long. Rory was starting to think maybe she had made a horrible mistake. She could feel her cheeks start to burn and her eyes fill with tears. If she could find the words she would say something else, anything else, just to break the deafening silence. As it was, she had nothing, and wasn't sure whether to be relieved when Finn finally answered her.

"Rory, love, I think my hearing's going," he said, rubbing at one ear. "Did you just-?"

"Propose?" she filled in for him. "Kind of, yeah."

"And you're serious?"

"Scarily so." Rory nodded. "I know it's sudden, and probably crazy, but isn't this what we're supposed to do? Isn't this just exactly what The Life and Death Brigade taught us to do? Don't think, just jump . I spent enough time over-thinking things, making the wrong choices, just screwing up my life. Now you're here, and things have been so great these last few months. I love you, I'm sure of that, and Maia loves you. You say you love us too, so if that's all true-"

"Yes."

He said it so suddenly, Rory was startled. She shook her head a moment and double-checked she heard and understood correctly.

"Yes, you love us, or yes, you want to marry me?"

"Both," said Finn definitely. "Yes, Rory Gilmore, I'll marry you."

Who moved first, neither of them could have really said, but in seconds they were in each other's arms, kissing like their lives depended on it. When they finally broke for air, they remained in each other's embrace, foreheads pressed together, the whole world and each other out of focus, not that they cared.

"So, where's my ring?" asked Finn, smiling so wide. "I hope you got me the biggest diamond in the shop, darling. I'll settle for nothing less."

Rory laughed loudly, she couldn't help it. Right now, she wasn't even sure if he was kidding, but that was okay. She would happily live in the confusion that was Finn's wacky sense of humour for the rest of her life. That was kind of the point actually. She might have told him that, if not for a sound by the bedroom door interrupting them.

"Mommy?"

"Oh, Maia, sweetheart. What's wrong?" she asked, pulling out of Finn's arms to rush to her daughter. "Did we wake you?"

"Bad dreams," said the little girl, grabbing onto her mother and glad of the hug she received.

"Aaw, honey. It's okay," Rory promised, holding her tight. "You don't have to be afraid. I'm right here."

"What's all this, baby girl?" said Finn, coming over to join them. "Bad dreams, is it? Monsters under the bed that need scaring away?"

"Unca Finn!" Maia smiled immediately she realised he was there, reaching for him.

He swung her easily into his arms and hugged her close.

"I guess that'll have to change at some point," said Rory thoughtfully, seemingly worrying him for a second before she explained. "Uncle won't really be the right word when we're married."

Finn wasn't sure what he would be after the event that tied him forever to Rory Gilmore. Logan was Maia's father, that couldn't be changed, and yet, he wondered if some day he would be the one she called Daddy. He really wouldn't mind at all, genetics be damned.

Still, if he had to remain Uncle Finn, he would be okay with that too. With one arm around Rory and the other holding onto Maia, he was the happiest man alive.

And weren't the three of them together just a perfect family portrait?

Nothing short of photogenic.


End file.
